“She Said Yes”

Brian Bump warned the friends and relatives he invited to the Working Glass 2012 award ceremony that if he seemed nervous it was because he’d be doing “a performance piece.” Did he ever.

"I was pretty sure of the answer, but my knees were shaking on the way up the stairs."

Brian, who has worked in Bullseye’s Architectural Fabrication department for almost two years, used the event to propose to his girlfriend Kari. And to make that proposal, he used the piece he’d submitted for Working Glass, a lost wax casting appropriately titled The Engagement Ring.

The Engagement Ring is a lost wax casting that includes Crystal Clear, Reactive Ice Clear Transparent, some borrowed gold frit, Steel Blue Opalescent, "a little of this and a little of that."

The couple has been together eight years and the subject of marriage had come up, but Brian says he was looking for the right moment.

“I needed an event,” he says, “something to kick me into gear.”

After the reception, Brian and Kari and their friends were off to a Halloween party (which explains all the costumes).

In addition to representing a new phase in his life, The Engagement Ring also represents Brian’s move into a new medium: glass. He’s previously worked in bronze, wood, stone and more recently in paint.

“Glass is where my painting was going,” he says.

The Engagement Ring came together with a little help from Brian’s friends and co-workers. The ring itself includes gold frit from Bonnie Celeste in R&E. The globe came from Bryan Jablonski in Arch Fab.

Brian may not have taken home an award that night, but he was definitely one of Working Glass 2012's biggest winners.

Having made the engagement ring, Brian is now at work making the couple’s wedding rings. There’s a collaborative aspect to that project, too: He’s working with Damascus steel (and advice) from his father, a retired motorcycle mechanic and master bladesmith.

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The Working Glass 2012 exhibit runs through December 28 in the upstairs gallery at our Portland Resource Center.